Tag: Jehovah’s Witnesses

the process of teaching a person or group to accept a set of beliefs uncritically.

This is how I truly understood indoctrination: I was reading a book about counteracting Watchtower doctrine. I was falling asleep. As I read the words explaining why the Governmental Body isn’t the Faithful and Discreet Slave (if you are not a witness, this will not make sense to you), I found myself rebutting each bullet point with things I remembered; points the author wasn’t taking into account, various other reasons why the Watchtower feels the Governmental Body is the FD&S (real or not). Now that I’m awake, I can’t remember any of those reasons.

While I was half asleep, they all came to me easily without even thinking. One after the other. Now I can’t remember any of it. My indoctrination was successful, even if it was flawed: the teachings are in my subconscious, even through the awakening of my rational mind.

My parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses. But not just any Jehovah’s Witnesses. My parents, as teenagers, were selected for parts in the biblical “dramas”, or plays, in the annual JW mega-convention. In fact, that is how they met. My dad went on to become an elder in 1985, and has been one ever since. My mom has been a full-time Bible teacher, called a “regular pioneer”, for as long as I can remember. They are hardcore.

And I had a very happy childhood! My parents were very loving and doting. We went to the five JW metings three times a week, we went preaching on Saturdays and most Sundays (which I never really liked but there’s no way around it), and when we weren’t doing religious things, I went to school, made things like drawings and shit, and played a lot with my sister. We also always had people from the congregation over for dinner, lunch, whatever. The JW community is very close.

Everything changed the day before my 30th birthday, when I got officially kicked out of the JW faith. It’s a long story about how that whole process goes, but the point of it is that when you get kicked out, or disfellowshipped, for being deemed “unrepentant” by a set of elders, you get cast away from the congregation and the JW community as a whole. Friends and family alike are required to shun you forever more, or until you go through a long process and get “reinstated”, and it doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do in between.

Getting reinstated has been a tremendous challenge for me because, during the course of the 9 years I’ve been disfellowshipped, I actually opened my eyes to the world outside the JW bubble. I learned things that changed my beliefs. My entire belief system, in fact, is quite the opposite from what I was taught to believe most of my life. It has a been crazy 9 years, with ups and downs like everything else, but during which I’ve done a lot of growing up. Or at least I hope.

I still miss my parents terribly. We’re only 20 minutes apart- but we never see each other. They won’t come visit, have dinner with me or my husband, invite us over, nothing. They simply refuse to associate with me until I “come back to the truth”. The problem is… I have tried to go back, sit through their meetings, understand their doctrine and see if I can live that life again. I am just too far removed from all of that. I think it’s all a bunch of baloney. I have burning questions about their faith that simply cannot be asked (ps. JWs claim that you can ask them anything. This is somewhat true, but not entirely. You can ask a lot of things. You just can’t challenge their answers or you’ll be labeled as haughty and not worthy of “The Truth”).

Not too long ago, I decided to say “fuck it” and ask some of those burning questions anyway. I sent Dad an email outlining some of the things that just didn’t make sense to me. His answers weren’t horrible- in fact, some of them made sense- but by the third question, he shut down and told me to be humble (because at this point apparently, I was being haughty) and to look for the answers myself. Thanks, Dad.

Does he want me to have blind faith? Just believe because, in his mind, that is just the only way there is?

I began to think about people who are born into other extreme religions, like Catholics back in the day when heretics were burned at the stake. There are many others around the world who just have to keep the family tradition, in this day and age, no matter how they feel about it. How about me? Could I do that? Could I just shut up and go along with it, for the sake of tradition? After all, it is my family’s religion. Is it worth it?

Is it… worth it… to sit through all these meetings and conform my life to a set of more than 100 spoken and unspoken rules about how to dress, speak, think, who to associate with or not, etc etc etc, complete with a host of “brothers and sisters” who are only too eager to tell the elders about any transgression they see…. Is it… worth it though… to spend time with my parents before they are too old and die. They’ve already missed out on most of my son’s life. He’s already 13. He’ll be a man before we know it. And.. I just miss them. A lot.

One thing is perfectly clear to me: they are never going to change their minds. Dad shunned his own father for decades until he died. Will he shun me, too, until we both die?

Do I close my eyes, stop thinking, and have blind faith? Should I shut up and follow the tradition even with the pangs of cognitive dissonance? Or should I continue in my path of resistance, suffering through it until they’re gone, and then live with the guilt of knowing that all I had to was swallow my pride?

At night, the water in my parents’ pool would create the most beautiful, soothing reflections up on the white beams of their screened porch. I loved looking at the underwater lights, listening to the soft hum of the a/c unit on the side of the house, wrapped in the comforting mugginess of a South Florida evening.

On Sundays, we would get together at my parents’ house and have a late lunch around their kitchen table, overlooking that sparkling blue pool and the lake behind it. There would always be a Mamma Duck and her kiddies gliding over the water. It was a big lake, although man-made, and off to the left there was a fountain that was always on, and at night it would be illuminated with soft lights. We would sit, eat roasted chicken and rice, talk, and joke around all afternoon. My family had a great sense of humor. It was a lot of fun.

My sister and I still talked. We all had the same lifestyle. I saw my parents every day. My husband and I still had the same goals, and every intention of growing old together.

I have been consciously trying to get away from my tendency to live in the past, and realize that things change, and embrace these changes. But it’s so easy to long for a time when things were different.

In a family ripe with Christians of the utmost morality, I, the eldest daughter, am most decidedly the Black Sheep of the family. I never thought it would be me to wear the label. Well….. did I? I always knew I was instinctively non-conforming.

I tried my best, I really did. I am just not made out to walk such a straight path. I am a sexual deviant. I am too open-minded. I don’t have anything against homosexuals; as a matter of fact, I *like* them. I like to wear miniskirts. I am not ashamed of my sexuality. I like to drink. But I don’t like to judge people. I am sincere. I believe in kindness and justice.

Still. That is not good enough to enter the Kingdom of God. Oh well. I accept that. Maybe it’s time I went ahead and got that tattoo, and seal the deal. I’m going to hell in a hand basket anyway.